By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — Retired symphony violinist Eileen Wingard gave members of her havurah (friendship group) from Ohr Shalom Synagogue a demonstration of that “old time religion” at her home Sunday evening, March 17.
Wingard, a vegetarian, organized a potluck dinner assembled from fruits and vegetables mentioned in the Bible, ranging from lentil soup (Genesis 25:34, the meal Jacob served Isaac to win Esau’s birthright) to an almond-based dessert (Genesis 43:11, a gift Jacob sent to Joseph the viceroy to ransom Benjamin).
The savory dinner was just the prelude to an evening of music that Wingard introduced with demonstrations and short lectures on musical instruments mentioned in the Bible. Thereafter, she assigned various examples of these instruments to her havurah members and guests and initiated what might be described as a biblical jam session.
Identifying the instruments mentioned in the Bible is anything but a certainty, as Wingard illustrated with quotations from different translations of Psalm 150.
In the King James Version of the Bible, published in 1943, the first two lines of Psalm 150 read: “Praise him with the sound of the trumpet; Praise him with the psaltery and harp.”
However, the Masoretic text of the Jewish Publications Society, published in 1960, renders those lines: “Praise Him with the blast of the horn; Praise Him with the psaltery and harp.”
Rabbi S.R. Hirsch offered another translation in 1973: “Praise Him with the call of the Shofar; proclaim Him with the psalter and harp.”
And in 1986, Prayer Book Press published the two lines as : “Praise Him with the sound of the Shofar; Praise Him with lute and lyre.”
Notwithstanding the difficulty of exactitude, Wingard set about transforming her friends into a biblical band, distributing to them instruments representing the four sections of any orchestra: the strings, the woodwinds, the brass, and the percussion.
Thus with autoharps, drums, small and large cymbals, the havurah members kept the rhythm for the Hebrew song “Haleluya” and with tambourine, lyre, harp, recorder, song bells, autoharp and drums, they delivered an enthusiastic rendition of “Yisroel v’Oraita.”
Noting that the San Francisco Symphony recently had canceled part of its national tour because of a musicians’ strike, one participant jested, to moans, “tell them we’re available.”
Along with the music came brief forays into Bible studies. Who can forget the image of David playing his stringed instrument to soothe a troubled King Saul as described in 1 Samuel 16:23 (Tanach, Stone edition): “And it happened that whenever the spirit (of melancholy) from God was upon Saul, David would take the harp and play (it) with his hand, and Saul would feel relieved and it would be well with him, and the spirit of melancholy would depart from him.”
Wingard said although this translation had David playing the harp, more modern scholarship indicates David’s instrument was a lyre.
Harp or lyre, this was perhaps one of the first examples of musical therapy, Wingard commented to the havurah, which named itself the “Adat Amigos” after Congregation Adat Ami, which years ago merged with Congregation Beth Tefilah to create Ohr Shalom Synagogue.
No instrument is better known to Jews than the one mentioned in Joshua 6:20 (Tanach, Stone edition): “The people cried out, and (the Kohanim) blew with the shofars. It happened when the people heard the sound of the shofar that the people cried out with a great shout. The wall fell in its place and the people went up to the city — each man straight ahead — and they conquered the city.”
The havurah must have been mindful of this biblical verse on Sunday evening, because when Raulf Polichar blew a mighty blast on the shofar (as he is known to do during High Holy Day services at Ohr Shalom Synagogue), the havurah members refrained from subsequently delivering a great shout.Hostess Wingard had reason to be thankful. What would she have done if “the wall fell in its place?”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com